Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
taurustendency

Mystery Bug

taurustendency
10 years ago

a few summers ago i was a gardener for a lady who had not done any active gardening in many years. her beds were completely overgrown with weeds, and her daylilies were really overcrowded, the worst you could imagine. while weeding and trying to pull back foliage for a walking path through one of these beds, i noticed an infestation of bugs on the undersides of all the daylily foliage. and i have yet to identify yet. maybe someone could help.

i first noticed it by running my fingers through the blades, and realized that my hands were soaked with a wierd juice. i was accidently squishing them with my hands. at first i though they were some kind of mildew or fungus, because at first, the undersides of the plant just had a total white sheen. but on closer inspection, it was a bug, or thousands of bugs, i should say. they were white and tiny, didnt move around, and obviously soft bodied.

i thought long and hard about all the garden pests i know and could not come up with anything, because afterall, they never did end up hurting the plants in any way. and they were ONLY on the daylilies. these plants were among roses, herbs, iris, wild flowers, wisteria, sedum, peonies, tiger lilies, garden phlox, anything you could image...and they buggers wanted nothing to do with anything other than the daylilies.

well, this lady is totally organic. no chemicales what-so-ever, and had nearby crops as well. so she wouldnt treat her flowerbeds because her crops were too close. so i just intently watched the progress of them. in no way, shape, or form were these plants affected by them. they stayed on the dark undersides of the plants. they never went up to munch on blooms. they were good strong plants, healthy in every way. and stayed that way all season, despite how the population grew to a point that the undersides looked like someone had taken a can of white spraypaint to them.

then i thought that maybe they are just living safely under the daylily foliage and maybe actually eating something nearby. the only other problem i seen in these beds were aphids on some of the roses, but even they were weird and surprisingly low in numbers. i say weird because they did not travel up the stems of the rose bushes, they got onto nearby plants and traveled over from the plants grazing eachother (perhaps they were smart aphids and avoided the thorns this way. haha!)

but i still really cant figure it out. a few days ago i visited these gardens and seen that the daylilies are still looking fine. i didnt inspect them, but from a general scope of the beds, they still do not seem to be suffering any ill effects. perhaps they just live and breed there, but want nothing to do with the plants. does anyone have any idea what i have encountered?

This post was edited by taurustendency on Sun, Sep 22, 13 at 11:56

Sponsored
Fineline Deck Builders
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars11 Reviews
Women Owned Construction Company Specializing in High Quality Decks